There were some murmurs throughout the table.
“What do we do with Lord Tarquin and the Saints if they succeed?” asked Hymnar. “What if they speak?”
“There is an old saying in my hometown of Byfrust,” said Balin. “An old Durotonian saying that goes something like Nupta pensum vel nupta argentum. Betrothed to duty or betrothed to gold. It means he who is married to duty is not married to gold, and he who is married to gold is not married to his duty. You see, Brandrir and Egret, they are betrothed to duty. Enamored with honor and vows and everything that comes with their office. But men like Lord Tarquin and the Saints, they are betrothed to gold. Wealth and power. Men like Tarquin will toe any line you give them if you make it worth their while.”
Jord nodded his head vigorously. “Lord Tarquin is on board with this Council,” he reminded.
“Indeed he is, and very much so.” said Balin. “It’s why we recommended King Garidrir to appoint him over Egret. Let us not forget that Tarquin came to me in the first place. Once he got word that Duroton might be granting Exaltations he wanted to be first in line to be given to an Exalted if the opportunity presented itself. I told him that if the deal with Celacia worked out I’d do him one better. You should have seen his eyes light up when I told him I’d make him Captain of the Saints Alliance. Now he can repay us for the favor.”
There were some more murmurings.
“No survivors.” said Gefjon at last. “No witnesses. Complete eradication.”
“I’ll send for Lord Tarquin at once.” said Balin. “Let’s see how well these Saints perform.”
— 8 —
A CALL TO DUTY
“So, just like this, you’re leaving for the Grimwatch?” said Dagrir, but Brandrir was only half listening as he tightened the saddle around Stormwild’s frame. It was a large and powerful Icelandic Great-Hoof with the typical markings of its breed: stark-white with black stripes under the eyes and a pair around each ankle. One of the most powerful and courageous horses in all of the North, and indeed the world, the Great-Hoofs were a rare breed, and even rarer to be saddle-broken. But breaking Great-Hoofs was something of a hobby to Lord Tarquin who led the Stellarium Guard and the castle had a number of magnificent and rideable specimens. Stormwild had been a gift to Brandrir for his twentieth birthday, and the steed had served him well and faithfully for the last five years.
“Father wants you to stay.” persisted Dagrir. “I want you to stay. Please, brother, you’ve got to learn how to deal with the Council.”
Brandrir pushed himself past his brother and opened up one of the saddlebags to make sure he had packed enough rations and supplies to last. The Grimwatch was over three-hundred miles away and some of the country, especially near the Blue Wilds, could get treacherous.
“Brandrir,” said Dagrir. “I know you hate politics. Unfortunately, playing that game is part of being King.”
Brandrir pushed past his brother to check the other saddlebag.
Dagrir sighed. “You told me more than a few times that once you became King you were going to make great changes. If you still hope to accomplish those changes you have to play the game. At least for now. You need to learn how our kingdom works. You need to understand the wants and needs of the nobles.”
Brandrir closed the saddlebag quickly and turned to his brother. “Do you remember the night the Kald came?” He held up his mechanical arm. “The night that took my left arm? The night that left those scars upon your neck?”
“The night that took mother from us.” added Dagrir, rubbing at his neck and the ruined pink flesh around it. “How could I forget?”
“That’s the thing,” said Brandrir. “Sometimes, I do think you forget.”
“Brother…”
“Not what happened that night,” said Brandrir. “Not what I did or what happened to you or mother. I think you forget the men and women that died that night, and I don’t mean our Northern Guardsmen or our Knights of the Dark Stars. I mean the people of Duroton. The people that fought from all around. The armies of farmers and villagers that came. Of the women and children who didn’t have swords but came with pitchforks and axes in hand. Do you remember how many came without nobles and their knights in the lead? Those people came not because father commanded it or some noble lording over them told them they must. They came because they were the sons and daughters of Duroton. They came because this is their land.”
“Brother—”
“No,” roared Brandrir, feeling his face flush with anger. “You sit in that council room and talk of exaltations and rights of nobility, but I tell you this, brother: that night when the walls of Durtania fell, they fell not because the sons and daughters of Duroton didn’t heed their call, but because the nobles and their knights did not come. Where was Lord Angmir and the knights of Snowbearing that night? Where was Lord Misendrar and the knights of Grayfrost?”
Dagrir’s face suddenly hardened and his dark eyes seemed to burn fiercely now. Brandrir rarely saw this face on his brother and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t stunned by it now. “So, you want to speak of memories?” piped Dagrir. He bit his lip and looked away and Brandrir thought he could almost see tears forming in his eyes. He looked back at him and said. “Let’s talk of memories then. Do you remember the Royal Guard that night? Do you remember them rescuing us? I do. How could I forget. They made it very clear just how worthless I was.”
Brandrir closed his eyes and the memories of that night were there in vivid detail playing out before him. He was but eight years old, Dagrir only four. He stabbed the demon in its belly, its blood like liquid nitrogen froze his left arm solid and the beast shattered it like glass. His arm had been replaced with the mechanical one he wore now, but he could still feel that searing coldness in it. It was a pain that had never left and never dulled in his mind. He remembered laying upon the floor, the beast’s maw lurching for him, and then the thwack of an arrow exploding through its skull.
Brandrir was lifted up, his mind foggy from the pain as he gripped his ruined arm. The flesh was still frozen, but on the tattered ends it was already thawing enough to ooze red blood. He looked up and saw he was in the arms of a Royal Guardsman who held him securely under his arm. Others in their plate armor lacquered white and emblazoned with the golden phoenix of Duroton stabbed and pierced at the remaining Kald until all lay dead or dying.
Brandrir’s eyes rolled, fighting back unconsciousness until he could be certain his brother was alive. Finally he saw him across the room. Dagrir lay crumpled, crying but alive, beneath a demon bleeding out all over the bed. His mother was there too. She was screaming at the Guardsmen as she held her torn gown over her chest. “What took you so long?”
“Was Fameil, milady. He pulled us from the hallway. Told us to reinforce the battlements. Not sure why.”
Another guard offered his words as well. “Your son’s cries summoned us at once. But quickly, we must go. This turret is no longer safe.”
Words were fading in and out of his wavering mind. He heard the Guardsmen yelling for them to get out quickly, that more Kald were coming. It was then he felt the warmth of his mother’s hand upon his head. His eyes cracked open and she was there, but the image frightened him and he began struggling in the Guardsman’s arms. His mother’s face was disfigured by frostbite. Her left eye was swollen and red, and Brandrir could see the hand of a Kald seared upon her cheek. Her lips were black and blue from where they had defiled her mouth, and her right ear was sickly purple and covered with ice.
“Shh, shh,” said his mother softly, and Brandrir felt calmed by her familiar voice. She wrapped a torn piece of gown around the oozing stump of his arm. He was vaguely aware of the dull pain as she pulled it taught and began tying it tight, but all he could focus on now was her exposed chest and the terrible scars and ruined flesh caused by the fingers of the Kald as they had groped her.
One of the knights now grabbed his mother, the Queen, by the shoulders and tore her away from him. “Quickly milad
y! We must go now!” he said.
Brandrir was still in the arms of one of the guards, and as he turned, he could see Dagrir standing alone near a fallen Kald. His eyes were red and dripping, his mouth open as he cried out for mama. His neck was striped with demonic finger marks seared into his flesh. Brandrir shook unconsciousness’s grip from his head and reached out with his right arm toward Dagrir. He saw his brother’s little fingers outstretched to him, but the guard moved too quickly and Brandrir was torn away as he saw Dagrir scream out for him.
“Quickly!” cried one of the guards.
“What of the little one?”
“Only the first-born succeeds the King!”
Brandrir’s eyes rolled the other direction and he could see his mother already far down the hall with two knights pushing her forward. Brandrir kicked and squirmed and felt himself slip from the cold, lacquered armor of the knight’s arms and his feet hit the cold stone. He heard the knight swear but he tore forward and grabbed his brother’s hand, gripping it as strongly as he could. “I won’t leave you.”
He felt himself pushed forward and he took Dagrir with him, clutching him in his right hand as they were whisked through darkened corridors of the castle. Everything seemed so big—the stones of the walls, the length of the passageways—and the clanking of the Royal Guard in front of him seemed so loud. Wails of men, the clanging of swords, the shrieking of Kald—these sounds haunted every corridor and chamber, restrained and eerily hushed by the thick castle walls. A thunderclap rocked the castle and Brandrir felt dust rain down upon him.
The pace of the Royal Guard quickened and Brandrir struggled to keep up. His legs were tired. His ruined left arm throbbed and unconsciousness threatened to take its hold any minute. He could feel the hand of his brother slipping, but Brandrir refused to leave Dagrir behind. Clenching Dagrir’s hand tighter, Brandrir looked into his brother’s teary eyes. “I will protect you,” he said.
Now there were terrible sounds behind them. The Royal Guard began shouting and he could hear his mother was crying. All around him screams echoed in the darkness. He and his brother were now straggling behind. The clank of the Royal Guard seemed very distant, but Brandrir refused to leave his brother in the darkness.
Suddenly he was grabbed and lifted into the air. He felt Dagrir’s hand being torn from his fingers. Brandrir cried out. He looked back and saw his brother fall to the floor, slowly fading into the darkness behind. Brandrir began battering on his captor, struggling against the strong grip, and it was then that he realized he was in the arms of a Royal Guardsman, his fists bouncing off the lacquered armor.
“My sons! My sons!” Brandrir heard the cries of his mother in the forward distance.
“Where’s the young one?” A harsh yell from one of the guards.
“Only the eldest succeeds the King!” His captor’s yell was full of panic. “Just go! Hurry, they are coming!”
At that moment, as the sight of his brother was swallowed by the dark abyss of the corridor, Brandrir knew they meant to leave Dagrir behind. Frantically he began punching at his captor’s face. The hard steel of the helmet cut into his flesh, but Brandrir kept beating and pounding with his one remaining hand and struggling until he felt himself falling and then smacking his chin hard upon the stone floor. Scrambling to his feet, he ran back into the darkness where his brother sat terrified and crying.
But beyond his brother something moved in the shadows. Ice began to encroach upon the stone walls and floor. He saw yellow eyes gleaming at the far end of the corridor, and hissing and growling now echoed through the darkness. Brandrir grabbed his brother’s hand and dragged him to his feet, but Dagrir stumbled forward and Brandrir fell to his back, his brother piling on top of him. As he rolled Dagrir off, a Kald emerged from the shadow-cast corridor, its eyes cruel and remorseless. Its bestial maw opened in a wide, joyous hiss, releasing a fog of cold, smokey breath into the air as it raised its wicked blade. Brandrir immediately rolled on top of his brother, awaiting the biting pain of its curved sword.
Then the whip of an arrow. And another. Then another. Kald blood, like arctic rain, fell upon Brandrir’s back. Turning, he saw the creature fall, its face pierced with a gruesome bouquet of arrows. Suddenly Brandrir felt the brutal hands of a guard lift him to his feet with a constricting grip around his waist. Just in the nick of time was he able to reach down and grab Dagrir’s hand before being whisked away yet again. Ahead, in the obscure distance, a guard whose voice trembled with despair yelled the word, “Hurry!”
Many times through that corridor Brandrir could feel the hand of his brother slipping from his grasp, but each time he willed strength to his hand until every muscle and tendon in it throbbed. The bestial sounds of demons chased them, and they retreated ever deeper into the roots of the castle.
Brandrir wanted to stop; to hold his ground and fight. The fact that the Royal Guard fled—that they would leave Dagrir behind given the chance—confused and dismayed him. And suddenly, he wanted to cry. He wanted to scream out for mother; to run faster than the guards; to cry out in hopelessness. But what then of Dagrir? What then of mother? What then of the Royal Guard? No, thought Brandrir. I am to be King one day. None shall despair by my presence.
And so he ran down the corridor, as fast as he could with Dagrir in hand, holding back any tear or sign of weakness that might enter his heart, until at last a doorway in the distance came into view. There his mother stood, leaning forward for him with outstretched arms, her eyes wide with fear and streaked with tears and demon blood. Behind her, in the chamber beyond the doorway, stood four more Royal Guardsmen with weapons drawn. “Hurry!” they shouted.
The door slammed behind them, and Brandrir was thrown out of the way as the guards rushed to barricade the door. They were in a small room deep within the castle. It was dark and windowless with only a single torch upon the wall providing light. Boxes and crates lined each wall and there were no doors here, save the one they came in through.
“Where is Snowbearing? Where are the knights of Grayfrost?” one of the guards was shouting as he rushed to barricade the door with anything he could find.
“They have not come. They have betrayed us!” another of the guards answered as he braced himself against the door. Then, pointing to one of the guards who seemed to be cowering in the corner, he yelled, “Protect the queen!” He pointed to another guard, “You defend the child at all costs.”
Just then fingers of ice began entering the room, creeping in above and under the door and from both sides. The wood iced over and then there was a terrible crashing upon the door which nearly threw the guard off of it. Brandrir heard the wood splintering. Two of the guards slammed their shoulders back against the frosty wood just as another loud hammering hit it.
Brandrir was thrown into the corner by the guard nearest him just as the door exploded in a shower of splinters. The two guards at the door made terrible screams, and Brandrir heard the distinct sound of swords biting through bone. Brandrir became aware that his left arm was throbbing now. He looked down and gasped. The fabric his mother had wrapped it in was soaked through with blood and was dripping onto the floor. Dagrir too became aware of it and his eyes went wide as he screamed out in terror. Brandrir tried to hide his destroyed arm and took Dagrir in his other arm. He looked to his brother who sat near him crying, and suddenly a great anger surged within his soul. “I promise I will not let them hurt you,” he said, clenching Dagrir’s shoulder. “I’ll never leave you behind.”
The guard nearest Brandrir and his brother charged toward the door and was cut down by one of the frightening beasts as it exploded through the entryway. Another beast charged toward his mother, only to be cut down by the guard before her, its body crumpling only inches from Brandrir and his brother.
Another two beasts burst through the doorway, trampling the bodies of the three fallen guards. They rushed toward his mother, and Brandrir called out to her, but his voice was drowned out by the guard’s yell as he thrust out his
sword, impaling the foul demon. The second Kald moved in with a thrust of its own, and the guard parried. As the two circled each other, exchanging quick thrusts, Brandrir looked to his brother, trying to will strength to himself. His arm was beginning to feel like it was on fire, and he was afraid to look down at it again.
The last remaining guard struck out at the demon, quickly maneuvering to disarm it and decapitate it in a single, fluid motion. The guard grabbed the Queen by the arm and threw her behind him. Before Brandrir knew it, he was back in his mother’s arms. Dagrir was at his side, and they huddled in the corner of the room.
The guard stood his ground before them as six more Kald filed into the room. These Kald were different though. Although they had the same cobalt blue scales, serpentine head and bat-like wings as the others, this foul lot wore scaled armor clumped with white ice, their heavy boots clanking on the stone floor, creating spreading webs of frost. But there was something else about them that Brandrir could detect. Something about them that radiated power and authority. Brandrir knew these were not the rank and file demons the guards had fought off. These were something else.
The guard flourished his blade, the silvery metal glinting in the torchlight of the room. Six Kald spread out, encircling him. The room filled with their frigid aura and the guard’s frantic breaths began to smoke. “Stay back!”
The demons all cracked a wicked smile and hissed an insidious laugh. The guard flourished his blade again, ready to attack, but then something echoed in the darkness of the hall beyond the room. It was heavy footfalls on the stone. They came slowly but very certainly, as if each clank upon the stone had its own will in the approach. The Kald gave pause and even the guard sensed what Brandrir could, that somebody of great power was approaching, but it was not a demon.
The Record of the Saints Caliber Page 24